The present invention relates to the mounting of a cover to a vehicle accessory such as an illuminated vanity mirror visor.
Vanity mirrors in vehicle visors are typically covered by a decorative and protective cover such that when the visor is in a lowered use position for sun blocking, the vanity mirror is covered when the mirror is not in use for safety reasons. The cover can be pivoted to a snapped-open position, typically activating lights for illumination of the vanity mirror for use. The cover, therefore, provides not only a safety function, but also a decorative function preventing reflections from the vanity mirror when not in use from distracting the vehicle operator. U.S. Pat. No. 5,098,150 issued on Mar. 24, 1992, discloses an illuminated vanity mirror visor of this type.
Covers for vanity mirrors and other vehicle accessories typically have been molded as a single polymeric member. They usually include some form of bias means such that the cover will conveniently move to a snapped-open or snapped-closed position for ease of operation. There is a variety of manners by which this has been achieved in the past, including providing a cam directly on the pivot sockets for the visor cover as taught, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,213,169, issued in July, 1980. Separate springs anchored to a vanity mirror frame and engaging a cam member on the visor hinge have been used for many years by Daimler-Benz in commercially-available visors as well. U.S. Pat. No. 5,098,150 also teaches the use of a spring clip which extends between a visor core and a visor cover to provide snapped-open and closed visor cover operation as does U.S. Pat. No. 5,078,445, issued Jan. 7, 1992. A difficulty with some of the prior art spring-type cover controls is that they require the springs to be either integrally molded within the mirror frame or require a special and somewhat complicated mounting structure for the frame and/or the cover for holding the spring in place when subjected to the various forces encountered in use. Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a spring-biased, snapped-open and snapped-closed cover for vehicle accessories such as a vanity mirror visor in which the cover and supporting frame are readily manufactured and assembled with the spring being easily added to the combination of the cover and frame and providing the desired control for the cover.